Ulster Schools’ Athletics Championships 2014

Congratulations to Grosvenor Grammar School’s Junior Boys’ team which secured the title of Ulster Team Champions at the ‘Ulster Schools’ Milk-It Athletics Championships’, held at The Antrim Forum on Saturday 17th May.

The team achieved overall success following a series of impressive performances from its members throughout the day. Perhaps most worthy of celebration was the performance of triple jumper Nathan Chan, who hop, skipped and jumped his way to a distance of 11.17 metres and, with it, a thoroughly deserved gold medal. For Nathan the day proved particularly successful as he also formed one quarter of Grosvenor’s gold medal winning 4x100 metre relay team as he, Ben Stevenson, Jonny Little and Ben Gilmore produced a blistering time of 47.77 seconds to attain first place. Elsewhere 1500 metre runner Aaron Harrison produced an outstanding display to win silver in a time of 4 minutes 34.56 seconds while the performances of the aforementioned Jonny Little (4th, sprint hurdles) and Ben Stevenson (5th, long jump) were of vital importance in helping the team to victory.

Grosvenor’s success on the day was not merely restricted to at Junior Boys’ level, however, with Andrew Wright the most notable success - achieving gold in the Senior Boys’ 1500 metres in a time of 4 minutes 05.28 seconds. In addition Gareth Thompson secured silver and bronze in the Senior Boys’ 200 and 100 metres events respectively while team-mate Adam Kewley followed just one place behind to win bronze in the latter of these events; later Adam and Gareth also combined to form one half of a bronze medal winning 4x100 metre relay team alongside Shane Johnston and Matthew Hedley. Finally, rounding off a fine day of performances from GGS’s sprinters was Form One pupil Finn Bailie, whose time of 13.41 seconds was enough to achieve bronze in the Minor Boys’ 100 metres.

On the girls’ side, meanwhile, it was in the sprint relays that Grosvenor had cause to celebrate, with the Minor Girls’ team achieving bronze in a time of 57.50 seconds and the Senior Girls’ quartet of Emma Larmour, Nicole Muirhead, Lucy Armstrong and Sophia Campbell roaring home in 51.1 seconds, faster than last year’s winners, to secure silver.

Well done to all of Grosvenor’s athletes who performed so well on the day; particular praise is of course reserved for the Junior Boys’ team but the success of the team as a whole is testament to the expertise and dedication of head coaches Mr Andrew Gibson and Mrs Karen Kirk, without whose commitment such accomplishments would not have been possible.

All at Grosvenor now wish its qualifiers the best of luck for the Irish Schools’ Championships, which will be held at Tullamore on Saturday 31st May.